Introduction to the Symposium Performance Measurement: Can it Improve Performance?

Performance measurement has long been hailed as a potential means of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of government agencies. Performance measures are increasingly popular because they may provide a means to improve performance and to illustrate to the public that government works for them. A main goal of performance measurement is to move the focus of government from bureaucratic rules and regulations to more tangible results. Although performance measurement can assume many forms in many different types of agencies, many governments now tie budgeting decisions more or less directly to performance measurement systems. Although a great deal has been written about how to implement and/or improve performance measurement systems, relatively less is known about how well such systems actually work to achieve better performance. That is the general theme about which each of the articles in this symposium is addressed. The articles examine performance measurement from a variety of jurisdictions and settings, from nonprofit organizations to state and local government. Each finds some encouraging results as well as some reasons to be more cautiously optimistic about the prospects for performance measurement as a catalyst for improved performance. Christopher Mausolff and John Spence provide a straightforward and rigorous empirical analysis of the effectiveness of performance measurement among local nonprofit organizations in the Louisville area. Using a structural equation model on data collected by dozens of program evaluators, they are able to investigate both whether performance measurement enhances agency performance and if so, how such an impact is achieved. Their findings generally and strongly support the notion that performance measurement has a positive impact on organizational effectiveness, and also provide some support for theory that this effect may occur via organizational learning.